How long did the Barkly fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 November 2025 and 8 November 2025: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 45,204 hectares (452.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barkly (43,579 ha, 0.1 %); Roper Gulf (1,394 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

AU · Australia · 2025-11-01 → 2025-11-08

Barkly fire, 1 November 2025 Barkly, Roper Gulf

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2025, 05:19 UTC

The fire started on 1 November 2025 in Barkly, Australia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 45,204 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 199th largest in Northern Territory since 2016 (of 3493 with a page). Number 76 in Australia in 2025, of 1124.

Burnt area: 45,204ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 1 Nov 2025 – 8 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 1 Nov; 2025
Heat detections: 1,083; in a single hotspot: 351 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 13.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 8 Nov 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Nov8 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

12345678

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high

54km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 63.1 mm on 15 Nov.

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,216 ha in 2017, 11,526 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

Barkly where it started

43,579 ha reached on 1 Nov

0.1 %
Roper Gulf

1,394 ha reached on 3 Nov

0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
25 Oct	39.9 °C	21 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Oct	39.9 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Oct	39.2 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
28 Oct	38.6 °C	25 %	54 km/h	1.4 mm	Very high 45
29 Oct	36.9 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Oct	38.3 °C	26 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Oct	39.9 °C	22 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Nov	40.2 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
2 Nov	40.0 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 48
3 Nov	33.2 °C	40 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
4 Nov	33.5 °C	29 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
5 Nov	36.4 °C	15 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
6 Nov	39.1 °C	17 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
7 Nov	38.9 °C	21 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
8 Nov	29.1 °C	49 %	34 km/h	7.1 mm	Low 6
9 Nov after	34.3 °C	31 %	29 km/h	0.3 mm	High 22
10 Nov after	37.4 °C	12 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
11 Nov after	38.9 °C	9 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
12 Nov after	39.1 °C	8 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
13 Nov after	40.2 °C	10 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 60
14 Nov after	37.8 °C	24 %	59 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
15 Nov after	36.7 °C	33 %	44 km/h	63.1 mm	Low 8

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 25 Oct 2025

After · 15 Nov 2025

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 43 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak43 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM1046 µg/m³

Optical depth0.83

WHO 15

30311234567891011

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,083Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Australia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Barkly fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 November 2025 and 8 November 2025: 8 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 45,204 hectares (452.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Barkly (43,579 ha, 0.1 %); Roper Gulf (1,394 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Australia (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 000

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 000.

Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned